AuthorTopic: [Newbie] Migration from WinXP (Read 3393 times)

Hello...I'm considering migrating from WinXP to Linux, and wanting to use VL as it seems to be fast while still being (relative) newbie-friendly. If possible, later after all my learnings, I want to completely remove WinXP from my PC.Please bear with me, as I'm totally newbie in the Linux world.

Partitioning Scheme

Previously, there were 3 Windows installation (on Win2kPro on C:\ = /dev/hda1/; Win2kServer on D:\, and WinXP on E:\; while F:\ is used for data)To make room for linux, I moved my data around and re-partition (in WinXP) and so I have like 11 GB of space.The 11 GB space got divided into 1GB for LinuxSwap (/dev/hda7) and the rest goes for root (/dev/hda6 - Ext3 type). "Windows-Linux" Share-able drive (/mnt/win) goes to /dev/hda5 (browsing its contents, they're the same as D:\)

If you have spare partitions, you can also specify which partition(s) to use for the following directories during installation process1. /opt2. /var3. /home4. /usr& a few others I don't quite remember. These are the commonly-found directories in Linux.More on these later....

Note: If you allocate too little space for Linux (root), you may get into problem described here. May be at least 7GB will be safe.

Then, I install VL6.0 Light using the steps described by newt here: boot using Grub4Dos --> install downloaded iso file from hard disk.Upon getting into the installation screen where it asks you where you want to install LILO, I opted installing into Sector as I'll still need to be able to boot to WinXP. Later when installation is finished, you need to add the following code into menu.lst file ( in C:\ or /dev/hda1)

Here's my first question:I want to move some files (physically, not just symbolic-link) from FAT32 Windows partition into one of the user account (, say, /home/ferry/data)How to do that ?I try typing /dev/hda1 in PCMan File Manager, but it returns "Error - Directory doesn't Exist"

you cannot (well, you shouldn't in 95% cases) deal with /dev/ units when copying or moving files.

Before using a partition, one should mount it to a directory. The same that happens on your drive /mnt/win that goes to /dev/hda5 .When you mount a partition, the filesystem is recognised and everything should be accessible from the /mnt/* drive

Just as an example (you can change the directory names), open a terminal, and try as root:

mkdir /mnt/win2kmount /dev/hda1 /mnt/win2kcd /mnt/win2klsThen you should see the files there.

If it worked, try to go to /mnt/win2k using the file manager, and copy the files. If the file manager cannot access the directory, it might be because you mounted that as root, and PCMan only has user premissions. It that's your case, post again and we'll come with a solution.

To automount the /dev/hda1 partition every time you boot (and give appropiate permissions), you should modify /etc/fstab . Search the forums/web for more info on that (or ask here if you are in trouble :p )

2. The VL-Light installation doesn't seem to contain any package for working with MS-Word /Office Documents. Either I'll have to install the package manually (AbiWord/OO) or upgrade all the way to VL-Standard.What would you recommend? (I tend to prefer lightweight ones like AbiWord / LXDE rather than heavyweight ones which I may not even realize what their full-features are)

3. My boot process is now still managed by Grub4DOS.What should I put in menu.lst file so upon choosing "VL 6.0 Light" on Grub4Dos, it will take me straight to the VL 6 GUI login screen ?

You seem to have some experience or at least it seems some of this makes sense to you.I would still recommend upgrading to standard 6.0 to ease your learning curve a little bit.

About word processors.I agree with you, I too prefer lighter when possible. However, if you will be sharing .doc files with other windows machines, I would recommend OOo. I've had some document corruption in the past when mixing abiword/MS Office to edit the same document.

If your documents will be dealt with in a linux environment only, then abiword is your guy.You may install OOo if you so wish to by clicking on your menu, and find the 'gslapt package manager' entry.Search for OpenOffice and you should see it.

About your bootloader, Please post your menu.lst and someone will give you some pointers.

title VectorLinux 6.0 Lightroot (hd0,5)kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 ro vga=normal 2savedefaultbootWell, it boots to text-mode instead (command prompt only) which must be followed with startx to go to IceWM

Could anybody tell me the right way to do it?

Btw, which one would you consider lighter: VL6.0-Light or VL 6.0 with LXDE ?

su - mysqlSeems like the installation script created usermysql into Linux, but I don't know what the password is.How can I change the password?

Anyhow, in the end (at least) I can get to mysql prompt

Apache & PHPI learned that I need to be root to do the steps described in the tutorial, so I opened a root terminal to chmod / modify httpd.conf & mod_php.conf / run mysql & httpd. (It'd be nice if you learn how to use Vi here or here a little bit to do all these editing)

Apache started OK (I can browse http://localhost)However....It doesn't seem to parse the PHP at all.I have this /var/www/htdocs/test.php (chmod 750; owner: root) containing the code

Apache installation using GSlapt points your www root directory to /var/www/htdocs (i.e. the directory within your Linux box corresponding to http://localhost).This directory belongs to user root, so you can't put any other files there unless logged in as root.So I think it'd be a good idea to set up a virtual host pointing the www root directory to somewhere under a regular-user account (/home/fery/www in my case).